The Chemical Atlas

In this minisession, Ziggy met with his oyabun, Watanabe, to discuss the increased corporate and police interest in Boxcutter Row following the series of fantastic events there. Watanabe had been contacted by a Mr. Myamoto, who personally represents the interests of Little Tiger Hoshi.

Myamoto proposed that, in exchange for cleaning up some lingering yakuza family business, Hoshi would take care of the corporate interest in the area. A member of the now-defunct Okaniwa-kai, a powerful warrior by the name of Tonka, refused to follow Watanabe after the death of his oyabun at the hands of Ziggy. Tonka was an old school Japanese gangster and would never surrender, and as long as he lived in defiance, there was potential for real turbulence within the entire Shotozumi-rengo in Seattle, as long tangles of conflicting honourable debts would land everyone in a new war. Keeping the balance would be in the interest of both Hoshi and the rengo at large.

To accomplish this task, Ziggy was given direct command over a group of misfit yakuza, all of whom were left alone when their kais were destroyed in conflicts with other kais, whom Oyabun Watanabe graciously accepted into the fold. Arms, Shock Baby, and Slash accepted Ziggy as their direct commander in the kai.

To accomplish the task set out by Myamoto, they first had to overcome three tasks. They had to obtain Tonka’s location from another kai, the Otome-kai, a traditional yakuza clan who primarily run numbers rackets, who protected Tonka because of some debt they owed him. Second, they had to make sure a respected kai in the area, the Kiyono-kai, didn’t take offense (or were forced to act like it out of honour). Lastly, Myamoto provided Ziggy with threatening video footage to deliver to the police officer active in the Boxcutter area, Captain Holstein. The footage showed his niece at her private corporate school, at times very intimately, showing that she could be in danger at any moment.

Ziggy, however, was given leave to take care of things in what Watanabe called his “effective but unorthodox methodology.”

Rather than infiltrate the Otome compound, Ziggy did some research and found out that Oyabun Otome owed Tonka because he once protected Otome’s daughter from a horde of angry metahumans during a riot. Taking advantage of this knowledge, Ziggy led his staff in a recreation of the scene, during which Arms provoked a biker gang of orks in a bar by attempting to benchpress several of them. The event was filmed and would later be heavily doctored by Ziggy, relying on his expertise in video editing and manipulation, to make Arms appear to be Tonka provoking the mob that would attack the young Ms. Otome. Shock Baby was called on to play the role of the helpless victim.

This did not go as planned. To make someone as tough as Shock Baby appear to be a helpless victim, they fed her a dose of a very dangerous toxin, Warp, by soaking an old Sioux head dress in alcohol that had once been very close to a Warp event. The trip was bad, and Shock Baby suffered irreversible brain damage and lost control, attacking anything within striking distance and going beserk. Ziggy wore the head dress when he took advantage of a powerful bit of dragon magic, and lingering threads of that magic were passed onto Shock Baby, who would take advantage of it during the final confrontation against Tonka. Despite the brain damage, Shock Baby was able to remain a functional, if dangerous and provokable, member of Ziggy’s staff.

When Ziggy delivered the footage to the Otome-kai, however, he was extremely high on several doses of a mental-boosting drug, eXcite, and could not resist the temptation to attempt to break into their secure servers from inside the compound. Hidden behind his sun glasses, Ziggy made a dangerous decision to go full VR and pull along his entire staff.

Delving deep into the Otome servers, they found several pieces of information. First, they found the whereabouts of Tonka, along with details of the security measures he had taken. Second, they found a file linked to Project Wishing Star that contained a list of patients linked to a line of clones called the “Zero Clone Series.” In that list of mostly unimportant names was one that stood out: it simply read “Patient 0: Mellow Yellow.”

Pressing on, Ziggy and his staff entered a much more secure node buried in the secure system and found a strange, uncomfortable stone room containing a single large, black orb, which, while Ziggy was checking the access logs to this ultra secure system, Arms and Slash worked together to slice the orb open. Out of the orb oozed a figure who had been injured by Slash’s VR sword, and once it wiped the mud off its face, it was clear that Jack Frost had emerged and that his arm had been severed. The connection ended abruptly, dumping Ziggy back in his meeting with the Otome-kai, who were unaware of anything he had been up to. Ziggy was able to leave the compound without any alarms being raised.

Convincing the Otome-kai that they did not owe Tonka released them from their obligation to protect him, and prevented the Kiyono-kai from needing to react. The business with Captain Holstein was neatly dealt with by tying the data to the end of a sword which Slash threw into his office window, cutting his desk in half in the process, while Arms held her up on a picnic table over his head.

All other matters dealt with, Ziggy and his staff went to take out Tonka. Knowing his security measures ahead of time, they were able to disable most of what he had laid out in ambush for them. Shock Baby ran in first and disabled his jamming system with a large dose of electricity to the device. Slash ran to the side and cut in half an automated machine gun turret before it had a chance to cut Shock Baby into ribbons. Arms confronted a local metahuman gang who had been paid to attack anyone Japanese entering into the area by finding one of Tonka’s drones, ripping it in half, and beating the orcs with its remains. Ziggy would have disabled Tonka’s Doberman drones if Tonka had not been smart enough to disable their wireless systems and leave them running autonomously.

Finally the group confronted Tonka, an older man in a trench coat and tattoos displayed proudly without a shirt on underneath. Several shots were exchanged before Shock Baby pulled on those dangerous threads of fate, charging the Doberman drones with a wire whip attached to a big car battery in her back pack. This attack caused the explosion of an underground power station left in an extreme state of disrepair under the ruined buildings, vapourizing Tonka and most of the city block.

The resulting blast acted as an enormous EMP wave, and when it hit Ziggy, he Submerged as a technomancer. He became aware of his own genetic code as if it were programming code laid out before him, and he became aware of that of all those around him. He was able to recognize how precise his own code was, more precise than him simply a clone would require. Ziggy became aware that his own genetic code was very carefully and purposely constructed, though toward what end was unclear. He felt something else, something foreign within him, crawling just underneath his code.

Quicksilver, on tour with Witchhammer, accepted a run / concert contract on a hidden compound near the borer of the Athabasca-Manitoo Council from Rose Has-No-Horse, who had figured out the headquarters of the Pure Blackfoot cult and wanted them wiped out.

Concert poster courtesy of Robin Eng

To avoid Sioux military patrols actively looking for them, The band took advantage of Quicksilver’s intimate knowledge of smuggling routes through the border of the AMC and the Athabasca Coucil. Only-She-Whispers summoned a powerful spirit of Earth, who called itself Sleeps-Deep-In-Sand, and bargained with it to help dig a massive tunnel through which they could fly their VTOL Thunderbird, the Iron Lady of Mercy.

In exchange, Witchhammer and Quicksilver asked fans to bring obsidian stolen from museums so long as they were not native american heritage artifacts. This greatly pleased Sleeps-Deep-In-Sand, who had many altars constructed in his image at the concert.

To ensure they would be safe from the Sioux military once they arrived in the AMC, despite it being outside their borders, Quicksilver made a potentially dangerous deal with the rogue AI, Master Shredder, to negotiate temporary extraterratoriality for the concert site through TicketBastard. In exchange, he, and Witchhammer, agreed to give it all merchandising rights to the concert.

Once there, and once the band had whipped the crowd into an appropriate frenzy, they effectively allowed their fans to soften up the first waves of the cult guards in a vicious mosh pit fueled by Inquisitor’s mood-affecting magics, after which they entered the hidden compound effortlessly.

Once inside, they confronted a strange being named Crippled Wolf composed of swarming metallic parts in humanoid shape in a hoodie. During the confrontation, a spirit of man summoned by Only-She-Whispers delivered a message to Quicksilver from a powerful spirit who had taken offense to Crippled Wolf’s efforts to violently purge the Blackfoot tribe. The spirit revealed itself to be the very same spirit Quicksilver once, in a moment of courtesy rare amongst magicians, simply told the spirit it was free to do whatever it wanted. One wonders what it’s been up to during that time, and it certainly seemed to have become stronger…

Quicksilver began to play Let There Be Rock directly into the spirit world, as something in his eyes reacted to his music and burst forth. As his power ballad reached deeper and deeper into the metaplanes, Witchhammer did their best to fend off Crippled Wolf. Organ Grinder made use all the demonic contracts at his disposal to first disarm him of his insect swarm, revealing a strange skeleton underneath, and then wrench out Crippled Wolf’s soul and send it to Hell.

Something went wrong, however, and Crippled Wolf did not react as expected. A vortex directly to Hell opened beneath him, which began to pull everything, and everyone, in.

The music of Quicksilver reached out deep enough to create a bridge to the metaplanes, which the man-spirit called the Rainbow Bridge, and over it came a powerful, ancient spirit that pulsed with primal energies. This spirit pulled them all back from the vortex and closed it.

It spoke only briefly, but the band learned they were in the presence of Blood Clot, the spirit of Blackfoot legend that helped the tribe learn to survive in the beginning of days. It thanked them for their service to the tribe of his favour before departing over the withdrawing energies of the dissipating Rainbow Bridge.

Venturing just a little deeper into the little bunker revealed a lab in which a single figure floated in a tank, the original meat of Crippled Wolf, whose brain had been neatly and surgically removed. It was clearly a very old clone of the same series as Click.

Something essential changed in Quicksilver as a result, and he is now able to differentiate between clone subjects of Project Wishing Star and the natural-born on sight.

Cause for weeks now, if you turn on your trideo, or you tune into NewsNet, you been watching crazy flix about clone monsters an invasion of the body snatcher shit, and reading about how the big boy corps been cleaning up after bioterrorists like Linda Swift cause they be all responsible like a Big Brother should and on an on. Anybody with two brain cells would’a put them together when the news of Project Wishing Star hit dem streets, but NO! Not You!

You ain’t no clone, you KNOWS it! You fucking mommy knows it, you was there at the Aztec mall with her last week an she remembered cleaning up your diapers and breastfeeding you til you was fucking 27. You ain’t even fucking thought about how SHE might be the clone, or you cousins, or you dad who fucking ate a bullet in the Night-O-Terror before you grew up. Fucking IMPOSSIBIRU, right? RIGHT!?

Naw, man, none uh that shit for you, an besides, cloning is some science fiction shit, right? Right now you is listening to a A FUCKINGELF, MAN! You want some science fiction bullshit, I’m some science fiction bullshit, so there it is. Not only that, your ol pale Tire Iron is a god damn clone hisself.

4 of them, actually.

I got files from some deep places that I was part of Project Gestalt, an initiative to re-breed the exceptional people who walk and rock in the shadows without all that independence shit. They took DNA strains from a well known runner who I refuse to acknowledge up in my shit and turned him into me, or me into him, or whatever. Then they tried to isolate the genes for magic and independence and shit and replace them with those from other people, an I’m living proof of just how much that was not a raging fucking success. Short lived project, and to the best of my knowledge, I was the only one to survive.

Then I went an became a few other people and did some fucked up shit. I gotta get the word out, there is this underground, super radical humanist cult called the Wounds of Odin. They be based out of Atlanta and they want nothing less than the extermination of metahumans. When the Humanis Policlub turned to soft tactics, the hardliners founds themselves without so many skulls to break, and that’s when I found them, and nursed them back into killing machines and shit.

Most of you will never accept it. Some of you know it already. I ain’t got time to waste on those who ain’t on board, man. So fuck you guys.

No, man, FUCKYOUGUYS.

Some Zuni buddies of mine are helping me move into my new digs way out in the Mojave, where the Mosquito can keep a close eye on me. Whatever happened to me isn’t done happening, and I gotta be far away from everything and everyone until the monster I am is the monster I want to be. So I got one last news update for yous all for a while, so listen the fuck up.

The Juicyfruits are on everyone’s tongue, ifyouknowwhatImean. Shit, I think I even saw some knockoff AR toys of Click from Hong Kong with that face-censor block of his that says “Radio being bad Boogeyman for to be the Easy Listening.” If you was me, I’d get some shit together on that crazy-ass Master Shredder release platform and snag yousself some underground patents. Speaking of which, the new cryptocurrency Quicksilvers is fast replacing the nuyen with the grey bank networks, but if you ask me, I think it’s sketchy as all fuck. I ain’t never gonna touch the shit myself but I ain’t gonna stop this gravy train wherever it leads. Just watch your fucking bank accounts, chummers, cause it’s probably watching you.

Meanwhile, hoity toity circles be talking about Sombra Nevada, the fashion company setting up shop right in the middle of Boxcutter Row, our new favourite corporate ghetto phantasma-fucking-goria. Some big wig, leggy model chick named Arcadia 9 is fronting this surprisingly high class endeavour, and if you ask me, I bet it ain’t been burnt down yet cause it got ties to the handful of Yakuza families spreading their way into Redmond. Either that it’s cause their fronting model is local gang banging heroine wolf shaman Phaede. She got like some kinda cult or some shit over there. Whatever, man, next thing you know they gonna get together in a big fucking kumbaya circle with street gangs and Knight Errant and the Underground and make fucking macaroni art and hug away the fucking hurt. But hey, if you survive the winter, Arcadia, good luck to you, cause a little bird did tell me you is putting some cash into that ghetto, and that’s alright by me.

So buy a fucking t-shirt, motherfuckers!

Witchhammer’s manager, Count Cocoa, being all pissed off they isn’t number one anymore, is planning a big fucking North America Christmas Tour called “Slaybells Ring: The True Meaning of XXXmas.” I hear they is pulling out all the stops on this one, boys and girls, as a benefit gig for Greg the Troll after his wedding plans were fucked up by, uh… me. He’s fine, by the way, I only pumped him full of enough Narcojet to take down Lowfyr, but don’t nobody tell him where I is because I think we cool, but his boyfriend Anthony is gonna fucking rip out my spine. And shit, after all the bullshit I done, I can’t say I don’t blame ‘em. Here’s to the hunt, motherfucker.

Finally, everybody an their uncle be talking about a new MMO being put out by Saedder-Krupp, Realms of Acquisition. I guess they got some cutting edge historical research up in this bitch for the ultimate Tolkien experience or whatever. I ain’t got time for that fantasy crap, but I hear they did get StenchQuest in for some of the soundtrack. These guys are the good orcs and trolls who got themselves a grant from the Seattle Metropolitan Historical Society for original goblin research, which they promptly used to produce their self-titled album and piss off the society. If you log into the game, check out some of the combats for the soothing sounds of tracks like “Troll Wenches Are Surprisingly Easy,” and “I Was a Respectable Pig Farmer but then A Human Stabbed Me a Lot.”

I can’t tell you how much I am gonna miss providing you the news, man, but hey, each and every one of you motherfuckers got all you need to spread the news, so I leave it to the next enterprising son of a bitch to be as charismatic and diplomatic as yours truly.

I’m heading into the desert for a while, man. Until I get back, pump those fists for me, motherfuckers.

The False Chemical Wedding

Part One

Tipped off that there was contact between Johan the Johan and Mulligan, the dwarf to whom Just Casey sold her old detective business, the Juicyfruits investigated him to find out that the little man was no dwarf at all – he had been surgically altered to appear to be a dwarf and fitted with a burned-in personafix skillsoft to make him really believe he was Mulligan. Angry, the Juicyfruits gave him to Hacko to feed to his ghoul family.

They then brought the Mulligan Irregulars, a network of street kids, to Boxcutter Row and set them up in the newly-bought warehouse Just Casey purchased. To their surprise, Redeyes had Boxcutters make sure they had a few blankets and bags of food.

Part Two

Greg the Troll and his fiance, Anthony, were to be married in a Catholic church, and wanting the shadow community involved in the event, they hired the Juicyfruits as their wedding planners. Members of both of their families were in attendance, as well as whomever could cram themselves into the church for the celebrity event.

During the ceremony, however, both Greg and Anthony were revealed to be the Casey twins from the Wounds of Odin in disguise, and the private security service was revealed to be in their employ. The security service fired assault rifles into the crowd but their bullets did not land.

In the light from the stain glass windows, the Hungry Star appeared and claimed Zero Point as his own, and it was at this time that Zero Point both Awakened and Emerged. During his awakening, he could see into the physical, the astral, and the VR matrix all simultaniously. As he did so, all three dimension began to bleed into each other, and the presence of Zero cause each to affect the other.

A paladin sprite compiled by Click protected the crowd from the security guard’s rifle fire, and as it did so he created a link from this node to SharpNET. Once there, Squeaker 2.0 ripped a hole in the nodes that forced the entirety of the cathedral’s occupants, including those involved in the matrix war that was erupted in the local matrix spaces, into the deep matrix node.

It was there that Tire Iron appeared and the Mosquito merged his persona with that of both Johan the Johan and Jack Frost, revealing that Tire Iron was, in fact, all three people. Confronted with this fact, the members of Frost’s technomancer cult and the Wounds of Odin dispersed.

The Monster on the Radio Speaks

/////Begin Transmission

Ever have one of those days were you feel like you really shouldn’t have gotten out of bed. Yeah that’s pretty much what it was like when the walls came down that terrible day in Box Cutter. Why am I telling you this, why are you sitting here reading this report that pretty much shows that hindsight might be fucking great 20/20 but you can’t stop something things like fate. Well whatever hole Tire Iron fell into has pretty much kept him out of the scene and I feel like someone needs to let people know what happened, and why. Well you look out the window and watch the world pick up the pieces after the devastation grab a mug of soy co-co and settle into the ARO feed of the day the world just went wrong.

For me it all started with that call. I was just coming out of a little deep vr run I was enjoying when my comlink starts screaming at me from Phade. Yeah that’s right, Box Cutter’s local saint, martyr and generally one of the scariest people I have ever had the privilege of watching the back of. Now don’t get me wrong, the video footage of Phade taking a smg mag right to the face well she is in beserker rage coming at you with that bat of pain in the ass tails, is pretty damn off your rocker, in your face, make you wet your pants, scary. However the phone call I got telling me she just took down a nasty clone of
herself in a fisticuffs makes me wonder just how much rubble was left from that little tate-tat. That’s when all of a sudden I go from deep freeze vr mind numb to grab your coat neo cause we need guns, lots of guns, this shit just got real. The rest of the team chimes in on the vr conversation and we realize we have a small problem. How do you keep a good bitch down without doing a constant two step on her noggin all damn day? Heck ever more so how do you make a mage stay under without taking the last dirt nap, which I was all for after the last time she gave Box Cutter the face lift it so desperately did not need.

Well as the team starts trying to figure out how to get a hold of the “chemist” and trying to figure out how to keep baby cakes on ice. I call up a good Orc friend of mine who helps put people together shall we say. He tells me about this guy he can put me in contact with who can solve our immediate problem. Only issue is that this guy doesn’t take script he takes “favours”. And after meeting him all I can think of is if I knew what I was getting into I would have told my friend to pull his lip over his head and swallow, but I am getting ahead of myself.

So after some arguing about who was going with me to the meet and who was going to help out Phade we roll up to the Orc underground and meet this…. Vagrant I guess is the best thing you can call him. He tells us he can easily put chicky on ice for us but he wants 10 fresh dead bodies. All I can think is that he just made Ziggy’s day, the pshyco… and I mean that in the nicest way possible. So I ask the supreme babe and all around face melter that is Casey, I hear she has “relations” with the Juciyfruit twins, but don’t tell her I told you so J, to try and see if she can get this guy to work out some sort of payment plan,
because look at me I forgot my wallet full of corpses. Funny that. She gets this guy to agree to doing the deed for a freaking construct. Whatever that was I have no idea I kind of tuned out after they started talking about Men made of Iron and that jazz. I know that Ziggy called up the wicked from on High that is (insert band name here). And they said they knew someone who could get us one for a sweet wack of credits. But as he was looking to foot the bill I figured whatever worked would work well.

However he did pass on a good bit of knowledge about that bitch that trashed my “Monster on the Radio” show. I wanted some serious payback for it, but I have to admit turning her into cannon fodder for our cuase seemed a bit harsh even by my standards. So well we are trying to figure out what to do next, me I wanted to take a little vakay out to visit the elves. Yeah I know I am crazy but hey no one ever said Tire Iron’s friends were sane right? Right, anyhow.

So we get a call from Phade that the crazy chick, no not Phade the other one, yeah you know burnt jumpsuit. Yeah that one. She was just playing possum with Phade and as they say “From the prick of my thumb something wicked this way comes”. And by something wicked I should say a butt load of hurt for all of us. Did I mention that that girl is 10 pounds of crazy in a 2 pound bag. Yeah magic crazy fucking shit man, if you don’t run the shadows, stay clear. Just some sound advice from one who has been around it too often. Man I have this hilarious story about a run with the security guards and an orgasm spell. But later on that one fans.

So I rush back to get geared up like its world war freaking 3 and Ziggy pulls out his massive notice me I am just awesome rig and all we see is just this massive thing. I can’t even really describe it really. It was big and nasty and made yours truly feel like I was a bug next to a giant next to the freaking sun. The crazy mages start throwing around magic like its fucking pez candy and shit goes crazy. Casey is going all RAWRHULKSMASHTHATASS on the creature and Whitefeathers is doing some weird mojo. Ziggy not wanting to be shown up is sitting there playing a good two beat staccato of Death Destruction and general Mayhem out his new rig. AH see what I did there. Well I am just feeling about as use full as a set of tits on a nun, when Phade disappears and Quicksilver starts gong all hey baby check on this crazy guitar shredding I can do. Oh yeah the dude total has an AI in his guitar. Yeah I know a FUCKING AI MAN, no lie its insane dude. He is all screw you bitch I own these streets with my Jimmy Hendy style WAHHHHMMMMMMM yeah rock YEAHTHROW UP THEHORNS shredding.

Phade not to be undone does some sort of crazy mage crap and all of a sudden there is this massive beast going blow for blow with the other freaking crazy beast. Did I mention that magic makes you feel insecure? Like sorry mama I swear that never happens usually insecure. Jeeze. So the guys are just going crazy when I notice that down goes quicksilver’s buddy, and man is he a harry one, with things on the inside of this body being on the outside of his body. And all I can think is hey I got a medi bot, let’s see what I can do.
I pull up and plug his ass into my medi bot 2000 and all of a sudden I can tell someone is rigging that sucker. I am like buddy my tech, my network, how uncivilized to hack me right when you know the stuff has hit the fan. That’s why I realize that freaking calvery is here and cars start driving themselves into the big bad wolf. Yeah man I kid you know hackers of the world unite. So I am watching the general chaos going off around me and think man I need to create a mad beat to this, cause I am going to love watching this in repeat. Okay I was really thinking OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT I don’t want to die. But hey let’s face it that really isn’t heroic right?

I notice Mama Macbeth and Whitefeathers do the chunky salsa dance as the Phade Beast just tears a new on out of this nasty spirit. I am thinking yeah we are winning this one. When my over Zealous “friends” AI decided a freaking 747 should end the problem nicely. Yeah a plane is coming crashing down on Box Cutter and I am sitting there thinking I need some popcorn to go with the life flashing by my eyes. When Phade Jumps up and freaking eats the plane. I kid you not, she ate the plane. Though it did some serious damage to her. I grab the bodies as they hit the floor and get them back to home base
to keep them alive on medical support and here I sit. Everyone looks okay but it’s a mess out there guys.

You might want to steer clear for I don’t know… ever. Cause after this Box Cutter is going to be under new management.

Clash of the Titans

Part One

The Juicyfruits, while meeting with a Mr. Johnson, were assaulted by a group of heavily-armed NAN Posse members who called themselves the White Boy Cutters. Specifically, they traced a visit Ziggy paid to a doctor in Sioux Nation and, angry a Japanese man, much less a yakuza, had been aided by a Sioux doctor, they murdered the doctor and were coming after Ziggy and his teammates.

The fighting was intense but short. During the conflict, Zero Point dropped a gas grenade full of Warp at his own feet, which disabled both his opponent as well as Ziggy, who promptly disappeared.

Part Two

The Juicyfruits were hired to investigate the Drinkwater Institute by an unusual social adept Mr. Johnson who would later be revealed as Tiger Hoshi in disguise. After infiltrating the installation, and being assisted within the institute’s local-access-only matrix systems by Jack Frost, the Juicyfruits acquired the database containing detailed information on the test subjects of Project Wishing Star.

Part Three

Quicksilver mentioned to White Feathers that one of the White Boy Cutters, who had been invisible the entire fight, had escaped them when Zero Point dropped his grenade. White Feathers revealed both that he knew exactly who the Cutters were as well as that their missing man, Sweet, was a child molester.

In a display of his own powerful and myserious initiations, White Feathers led Phaede and Quicksilver in a ritual casting of the Manabolt spell in the middle of the streets of Boxcutter Row. This public ritual attracted the attention of the residents of Boxcutter, first with tremendous fear, and then with growing loss of sanity as the power of White Feather’s spell began to bleed into the surrounding environment.

The spell was guided by a watcher spirit, who had found Sweet unconscious and unwell behind a dumpster about a half a mile from the cafe where they had fought the Juicyfruits. The spell left behind little more than a wet stain, and White Feathers let his astral signature remain there as a warning.

Part Four

Quicksilver and Phaede, without warning, were attacked by the villianous man in the burnt jumpsuit, who seemed determined to eliminate Phaede, but in a show of powerful spells and nimble parkour, the two shamans finally brought down the murderous figure. When they removed his helmet, however, he turned out to be a she, and she was a spitting image of Phaede.

It was found out this was a toxic shaman named Wolf Teeth. who was being hunted by Linda Swift and her rogue battalion of DeBeers-Omnitech paramilitary soldiers. Wolf Teeth was responsible for the massive firebombing bombing of a playground in California, which killed a small girl named Naledi Swift, who was a clone of the same series as the insane shaman. Naledi’s memories were transferred into a new clone, who showed the promise of awakening, and released into the Seattle streets. This new clone would blame herself for the disaster as an accidental side effect of her Awakening, and would serve as a useful scapegoat if the project ever came under scrutiny for the event, which it obviously did not, as the terrorist group EcoFist! took full responsibility.

This knowledge in hand, the team decided to try to sell Wolf Teeth, alive, to the ruthless and still-grieving Linda Swift. Through Mellow Yellow, they made contact with an eccentric hobo named Papa Banquise who summoned a strange spirit that forced itself into Wolf Teeth and held her still. Unfortunately, Wolf Teeth managed to weaken the spirit holding it and used her remaining strength to summon her very mentor spirit, Toxic Wolf.

Toxic Wolf was the size of several Stuffer Shacks, black and oily to the scent and to the sickening touch, and began to wreck havoc on the ghetto and its inhabitants. Phaede, the Juicyfruits, and everyone in Boxcutter did what little they could, but the terrifying attack of the Abomination seemed to pale in comparison to this. Lady Macbeth and Whitefeathers managed to weaken it with a banishing, but the effort nearly killed even them.

During the conflict, Phaede made contact with her own mentor spirit, Wolf, who agreed to intervein in exchange for the gaes that Phaede would gather shamans to pursue Toxic Wolf, and all its cubs, into the astral and there wage a final war against it. Wolf manifested directly in Phaede and attacked its Toxic nemesis.

While the two spirits wrestled with each other, a sasquatch named Timbit was caught between them trying to deliver a message to Quicksilver. In an unusual display, while Click’s medical drone, operated by an adept machine sprite, juggled the Sasquatch’s organs and intestines back into their places and stitched patches of meat together in a flurry of whirring, clicking mechanical arms, Quicksilver reached into the astral and wrestled with his old friend’s soul while it tried to depart from its dying flesh. Barely, just barely, the soul agreed to go back into its seat of meat, but in doing so became subtly entangled with Quicksilver’s.

The Buck Stops Here

“Welcome to NewsNet, it is currently Monday, Oct 5, 2072, and I am your host, Sheila Franks. Our top story tonight is the terrorist actions of an entire battalion of DeBeers-Omnitech paramilitary forces, who, under the direction of an accountant named Linda Swift, commandeered billions of nuyen worth of equipment from their corporate offices here in Seattle, including a fleet of helicopters which were used to engage in a senseless attack on a Seattle neighborhood using biological agents. The helicopters were returned to the DeBeers-Omnitech offices after the attack, but the battalion itself is still at large and
considered armed and extremely dangerous.

“It is not currently clear how an accountant took command of a paramilitary battalion, and experts have postulated that her position in the company may have been an elaborate act of espionage. Sources have yet to confirm this, but we will keep you posted.

“Last night, a colourful Seattle neighborhood in Redmond known locally as “The Topcut Row” was subject to an attack by biological agent during an unlicensed charity benefit concert. Specifically, the rogue battalion released a controlled bioswarm of GreenClean, an Awakened and proprietary form of aerial jellyfish used to contain bio hazardous outbreaks in secure facilities. The bioswarm was never intended to be used on living animals, and the consequences were devastating as the bioswarm began latching onto helpless residents and poisoning them with bleach-like secretions. The death toll is estimated at over 300 and still counting, with hundreds more injured or wounded.

“A joint team of DocWagon, Aztech Medical Services, and Ares MediRam have flown in emergency relief services after the attack, and Knight Errant is stepping up patrols in the area. Violence and aggression is rampant the area, and there have been numerous riots by armed, angry, and scared residents looking for someone to blame for this tragedy.

“Now we go live to the scene at Topcut Row with Victor Larson. Victor, can you hear me?”

{Camera cuts to Victor in front of the Stuffer Shack. Camera pans to show massive destruction to buildings and sidewalks. Those in the know realize half that damage was already there, and half that again was there before the spirit assault on Boxcutter. There are medical vans everywhere, and all store fronts have been locked up except the Stuffer Shack.}

“Hello Sheila, I can hear you. The name of the neighborhood is actually Boxcutter Row, Sheila, and I am standing in what looks like a warzone right here in Seattle where the tragedy took place. There are medical personnel everywhere, and as you can see, there is still so much cleanup to do. The damage done to these people is incredible, Sheila, and you can really only appreciate it when you’re standing right here and talking to the residents. They’re angry and scared, and most of them are staying indoors during the cleanup.

“Interestingly, Sheila, the residents here say that a loudspeaker voice, probably belonging to Swift herself, shouted the name ‘Naledi’ repeatedly into the crowd during the attack. Our sources have confirmed that Naledi is the name of Swift’s younger sister who, ironically, died as a child in an eccoterrorist attack on a school playground in the California Free State years ago. It’s possible that Swift has gone insane and is seeking revenge for the painful loss of her sister, but that’s just speculation right now. How anyone could do this to people is, frankly, beyond me.

“Not only that, Sheila, but NewsNet sources indicate that members of the Swift family, including herself, her parents Anathi and Joseph Swift, and her brother Daniel, who are all employed by DeBeers-Omnitech, have recently been under internal investigation for possible embezzlement. The brother, Daniel, hasn’t been heard from in over a year now. Back to you, Sheila.”

{Camera cuts back to Sheila in the newsroom}

“Thanks Victor. The World Corporate Court convened early this morning and unanimously denounced Swift’s actions as ‘barbaric.’ A corporate warrant for her and her battalion’s arrest has been issued, and furthermore a bounty of five million nuyen has been posted for the capture of Linda Swift. She is currently wanted dead or alive.

“Members of every AAA Corporation have expressed their grief for the residents of Seattle. In particular, a charity donation drive is being co-conducted by Aztechnology and Ares Macrotechnology to provide better quality food and water services to Boxcutter Row in the wake of the tragedy.”

Lost in Time and Space

This session was our first nonlinear session, and the events of the session did not occur to the players chronologically. This summary, however, is in linear order.

The Juicyfruits, in the most recent round of Trideo Arena, beat the reigning champs Witchhammer by a landslide. Their manager, Count Cocoa, responded by challenging the Juicy Fruits to a public battle of the bands. Stages were set up at either end of Boxcutter row with the intention of flying Witchhammer in for a rocking one-on-one jamfest.

Zero Point was introduced to the game getting off a Triad boat from Hong Kong with a massive delivery of recreational chemicals for the concert. Some Okaniwa-kai goons showed up at the dock, though, and accused Ziggy of aiding the Seatte Triads, to which Ziggy replied that a small book in his possession would suffice as his contribution to the family. Not accepting this, the goons attacked and were mostly slaughtered. Their leader was taken captive.

Not long after, Zero Point first encountered White Feathers, who asked him to deliver something to Phaede at the concert. Zero agreed after a brief staredown, but he was disturbed to see the room where White Feathers was keeping the package was filled with the ripped-apart bodies of what would later be identified as the Befolk Halloweeners. When Zero delivered package to Phaede, it contained a weapon focus punching dagger.

Getting ready for the show, the Okaniwa-kai captive was crucified on an errant telephone pole near the Juicyfruit stage. The Witchhammer stage was shrouded in a magical darkness sustained by a spirit, with the intention of staging an epic, revealing moment with their T-bird made its appearance in the sky. When the time came to begin the concert, however, Witchhammer was still in transit and the darkness fell away to reveal a different band being lead by none other than the man in the burnt jumpsuit, who immediately began to play a song.

The music had a strange influence on the people throughout Boxcutter Row, and hundreds of people in the audience cast off their street clothes to reveal Halloweener colours. As huge block war began between them and the Boxcutters, it became obvious they were better armed and tougher than anyone had seen this gang before. Both sides armed to the teeth, Boxcutter Row became a war zone capped by two concert stages.

The Juicyfruits began to play as well, and the music from the two stages both began to compete for influence over people. During this time,Just Casey made a virtual appearance as the Juicyfruit twins.

Not long after the fighting started the sky was filled with helicopters bearing DeBeers-Omnitech logos dropping strange, tiny, glowing jellyfish over the neighborhood. The jellyfish floated down as if the air was an ocean current into which they were settling. When people were touched by these they screamed and collapsed in pain. When the jellyfish eventually touched Phaede, White Feathers, and Quicksilver, they found themselves transported to a strange astral pocket space surrounded by what a green-veined membrane, along with a haloed beast and a little girl. White Feathers could only clutch his head and scream. The Beast, who identified himself as The Hungry Star, calls Phaede and Quicksilver his children and wanted to know where everyone else was. He also wanted to consume White Feathers.

Quicksilver tried to communicate the with The Hungry Star but found basic communication difficult at best. It didn’t seem to comprehend basic concepts such as pain or death. Quicksilver did manage to convince him, however, that White Feathers was poison and should not be consumed for safety reasons. Eventually, both Phaede and Quicksilver entered into the halo above the beast’s head and disappeared. It is a week after the events of that night before they reappeared on what was left of the stage.

While the bands were still growling back and forth at each other, and Boxcutters and Befolk Halloweeners were killing each other, the jellyfish swarm descended on friend and foe alike. Zero Point set up an emergency chemistry “lab” in an abandoned basement. Outside he could hear the sounds of explosions, screaming, gunfire, and children crying. In a few minutes, he had what he was looking for: a beaker filled with a strange glowing green liquid that, when shouted at it in anger, caused its beaker to explode.

He ran outside with his strange, emotionally reactive chemical and sprayed it into the jellyfish swarm. It spread rapidly through the swarm, and as the waves of violent musical hit the infected jellyfish they vibrated, turned a sickly grey, and fell to the ground dead.

As the swarm dissipated, the voice of Linda Swift could be heard on a loudspeaker on one of the helicopters shouting “I’ll kill you, you bastard, for what you did to Naledi!” At this time, the man in the burnt jumpsuit and his unknown band left the stage and disappeared into the shadows of Boxcutter.

Tarnished Reputations

“He-llo trideo viewers! I’m Archibald Personna 5.7, your fav-o-rite holo-host, and you’re
lucky enough to be tuning in for Lifestyles of the Mega Rich & Filthy (LotMFR is a trademark of Panda Entertainment, a proud subsidiary of Horizon). Today’s episode is sponsored by DeBeers-Omnitech patented Killer Krill Dogs, which you can buy now in three new EmotiFlavours! Try aTropical Breeze dog today!

“But enough foreplay: let’s get down to today’s mega, filthy business. Tonight we’re
zooming in on one of the hottest names in the heavy metal freakshow scene; the California Free State’s very own wayward children, Witchhammer. We’ve all seen the hype, but tonight we’re going to get a rare chance to peer below some of the face paint and war cries to see the creative, beautiful, and terrifying minds behind one of the hottest bands in North America today.

“Witchhammer hit the scene back in ’62 with their hit single “Power Hour” from their
first, self-titled album. Their rise on the charts was nothing short of breathtaking, and for a band without megacorporate sponsorship, it was unheard of at the time. Frankly, it still is (snort).”

{Edit: cut to studio interview with David Mitchell of Hologasm}

“Oh wow… Witchhammer. Those guys came outta nowhere. I mean really, when they
played that concert in Oakland before the Pueblo got involved there, they flew that big fuck-off church over the block and blew away the old hospital there. Watching them jet pack onto the ruins was like watching demons descend from the Heavens, you know? Then they broke into a wonderful metal version of ‘Sargent Pepper.’ (Laughs) At the time, all I could think was ‘Oh man, these guys are just another Beatles cover band. I’ve been screwed out of 50 nuyen!’ Little did I know I was watching history unfold.”

{Edit, cut to Archibald superimposed on footage of the ruined building. Flowers and
wreathes are everywhere, along with little statues of the band members and thousands of candles}

“This is the very building where Witchhammer performed their first concert, and as you
can see, it’s not only never been rebuilt, but it’s become something of a holy place for
Witchhammer fans. Everyday, an estimated 3 to 5 hundred people come here to pray to the
members of Witchhammer for everything from guidance, to helping them with addictions, to
revenge for lost loved ones. Some of the more fanatical fans even come here to flagellate
themselves.” Perceptive members of the Shadow Media scene will recognize the nominal leader of Shatterstorm giving the camera the finger.

“Since this concert, rival bands and private armies alike have fallen to the unique
combination of heavy metal, black magic, and military grade munitions. Since ’62, they’ve put out a prodigious 10 albums in 8 years, but because of their colourful history of aggression and international incidents, not a single one of them has been nominated for an award of any kind.”

{Edit, cut to studio interview with Space Commander Cuntalicious Frootdood and Itty
Bitty, both of Two Ton Wanker}

SPCF: “You gotta-hanashimasu about a band that puts their nuyen where their dick
been…”
IB: “Yea.”SPCF: “Gotta talk ‘bout Witchhammer, neh!”
IB: “Yea.”SPCF: “I got nothing but respect, you feel me, cause we do our god damn ichiban to
practice what we preach, neh, but these frosty froods totteru what they fuckin’ do…”
IB: “Yea.”SPCF: “… and that’s be knowing doko de they taoru desu! That’s, like, for real, wakarimasu
yo?
IB: “Yea.”

{Cut to Archibald 5.7 in front of AR displays of the band members back in music store}

“We’ve heard from musicians on Witchhammer, but what about government officials?
How do law abiding citizens feel about the awesome terror that these five freaks represent in thevworld at large?”

{Cut to Captain Holstein, Knight Errant Seattle Division}

“There’s no way to sugar coat it: Witchhammer is a threat to society and decency at large.
Their music is garbage. Besides, nobody plays the oldies like Type O Negative like they used to back in the day. Kids today don’t know anything about metal, and meatheads like these guys are just teaching kids that the power of metal lies in stronger drugs and public vandalism. It’s so much more than that.”

{Cut to Lieutennant Morimoto, California Protectorate}

(Translated from Japanese) “Witchhammer are dirty. Do you hear me? Dirty! Don’t listen
to them! They will destroy you, and if they show their faces in the Bay again, the Protectorate will do the unfortunate business to protect the purity of happy citizens. (Points at the camera) Shame, Witchhammer.”

{Back to Archibald in the music store}

“Ouch. Musicians respect them. Government and law enforcement hate them. Fans
literally worship them. But what do Witchhammer have to say about that? In an exclusive
interview, we here at Lifestyles of the Mega, Filthy Rich (tm Panda Entertainment of Horizon) got to fly a reporter, the intrepid Sly Micro McAlister, to their private fortress-like home hidden deep in the Big Sur. Let’s see what he found out.”

{Camera cuts to Sly Micro, a bulbous man in a black button up shirt, a red mohawk, and
emotive cybereyes.}

“Sly Micro here, hanging out at-location with Witchhammer in their secret base
somewhere in the Big Sur.”

{Camera expands to show the members of Witchhammer, each sitting on a throne}

“First, Inquisitor, tell me, now that you’ve been so long at number one on the charts, do
you think you can keep up the momentum?”

“Well,” answers Inquisitor, wearing a heavy red robe under a chainmail shirt. His voice is
soft as a kitten. “There’s some real competition coming out of the woodwork these days. Look at the Juicyfruits. Those guys are rocking out and stirring up hornets nests all over the NAN. Hell, they even got an exclusive concert or something with the Drake Foundation. We haven’t even had that kind of priviledge, and these guys are brand new.”

{Sly theatrically spreads his hands}

“The Juicyfruits? Who are those guys?” The more perceptive members of the audience will
realize the backdrop behind Sly Micro is superimposed. He’s not in the studio with the band at all.

“The Juicyfruits,” says Demon Lips, “those guys are up-and-comers, and if you like your
media from the shadows, you’ll keep an eye on these guys for sure.”

“Interesting,” says Sly. “Would you say these guys are capable of causing the same level of
mayhem as you guys?”

“Oh definitely,” replies Only-She-Whispers, “but I think fans will find they don’t have
what it takes to hold the reigns indefinitely. Intrepid readers will recall,” she says, suggestively stroking a tendril coming from the head of a massive manifested beast spirit behind her, “In ‘Roses For Rotting Angels’ Frankenbastard foretold the coming of the Juicyfruits when he re-wrote that Hamlet bit to be about sodomy and Aztec accountants.”

{Surprised expression} “I had no idea. Enough about these guys, though, tell me about the new charity that you guys started for breast cancer…”

Good Work Undone

In this session, the Juicyfruits arranged a meet with a Mr Johnson in a strip club called “Making Hole” on the outskirts of Chyenne, Sioux Nation. They were surprised to find out it was Mr. Henderickson, who had been promoted to the “Deniable Assets” Department of WelWorx following the Boxcutter incident. They also met with Quicksilver, an Objebwe runner who had transported him to the club that he wanted signed onto the mission as well.

Henderickson, to repay them for saving his son, offered them an easy way to get themselves into Denver courtesy of his new power within Ares rather than performing the run he had intended to offer them. The Juicyfruits opted instead to do the run, which would also land them in Denver, but with a fatter wallet.

Henderickson, or “Mr. Johnson,” enlisted the Juicyfruits to break into a facility owned by HyperSun Research Industries and perform an extraction on Rose Has No Horse, who will also help them steal a backup of destroyed financial files that prove HSRI was illegally taking investment money from DeBeers-Omnitech.

The party broke into the HSRI facility in Cheyenne, successfully extracted Has No Horse, and, lacking the time to hack into CEO Iron Cloud’s personal work terminal for the juicy data, they physically ripped the entire private terminal, desk and all, out of its moorings from her office and carried the whole thing out with them. While exploring the building, they also discovered a series of old fashioned floppy disks in a burnt out office with an obscure project number on the door.

Finally, with Has No Horse’s full cooperation, the financial records copied, the floppies, and an entire private, unwired database belonging to the HSRICEO, the party drove like mad out of Cheyenne. On their heels were the first signs of a military response to their infiltration of the facility, as arrowheads began embedding themselves into the big rig from the rooftops. Eventually they got out of the city, but as they drove towards the border, ravens began to appear in the sky in alarming numbers.

The ravens turned out to be military shamans who began to rain lightening spells on the Juicyfruits’ vehicles, but when they reached the border with Denver, the big rig had been fitted with legitimate Ares credentials and the Denver border guard to the UCAS district were waiting with guns ready. The Juicyfruits safely made it into Denver, delivered Has No Horse to the big Ares office, and drove the big rig to the loading docks of the Drake Foundation.

In a whirlwind encounter that left the party reeling, a ghoul woman, the exact doppelganger of Casey, gave them their payment, told them they were all certainly going to deserve it, herded them onto a VTOL, and suddenly, the Juicyfruits, with Quicksilver in tow, were back in Seattle without a single one of their questions answered about the jarring experience.

Part of their payment, however, was a wish owed them by the Foundation. With such a hefty, and dangerous, payment in pocket, there was little they could do but accept, even though the word spread the Juicyfruits worked with dragons.